How to hand over arguments containing "-" in Bash?

Question

I tried to use the grep command to search for a string like -R in a file. But the command thinks, that I am trying to hand over an option like -i for ignore case.

i think that you wrote the answer in your question ... use "-R" , not -R — jsotola, Jun 09 '19 at 21:58
@jsotola are you serious? to the op: use grep -e -R ./-file1 file2, where -R is a pattern starting with -, and ./-file1 is a filename starting with -. — , Jun 09 '19 at 21:59
The answer is here: What does “--” (double-dash) mean? (also known as “bare double dash”) — Freddy, Jun 09 '19 at 22:01
Thank you, @Freddy and pizdelect, both of your answers work for me! — Adrian, Jun 09 '19 at 22:13

Kusalananda · Answer 1 · 2019-06-10T12:49:30.980

3

The -e option for grep is for explicitly saying "the next argument is the pattern":

grep -e -R file

The above would search for line matching -R in the file called file.

The -e option may occur multiple times on the command line, and grep will use all the given patterns (you will get the lines back that matches any of the patterns).

edited Jun 10 '19 at 12:49

answered Jun 09 '19 at 22:14

Kusalananda

333,661

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 10 '19 at 00:53

2

As well as the previously mentioned answers, -- is used to signify the end of options, allowing you to use patterns afterward that may resemble an argument without being interpreted undesirably:

$ echo -R | grep -- '-R'
-R

answered Jun 10 '19 at 00:53

jesse_b

37,005

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 09 '19 at 22:02

1

Try to escape the characters grep \\-R myfile.txt:

Example:

$ touch test.txt
$ echo "-R" >> ./test.txt
$ cat test.txt
-R
$ grep \\-R ./test.txt
-R

answered Jun 09 '19 at 22:02

JJbh

44

Thank you, your answer also works for me! – Adrian Jun 09 '19 at 22:13

How to hand over arguments containing "-" in Bash?

3 Answers3

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